Visualize Excel salaries around world with these 66 Dashboards

70 Responses to “10 Tips to Make Better and Boss-proof Excel Spreadsheets”

1. Yogesh Gupta says:

   November 3, 2009 at 9:54 am

   Proper print settings on each sheet helps your boss to print the reports quickly without hastling you after printing irrelevant stuff.

   It is highly relevant that you print your reports once before circulating it to your boss or other people.

   Knowing that what your boss actully look at in the entire report can be very usefull. You can build a good summary of what your boss wants and put that as separate tab in the form of dashbord report, so that your boss does not peep into rest of your work and start pocking you with irrelevant stuff.

   You can also put that Dashboard into the email summary and not trouble your boss to open your workbook. This is ultimate boss proof tip and I have been using this for long time now.

   Reply
2. Shuchi says:

   November 3, 2009 at 10:19 am

   Thank you Chandoo. Great checklist to follow before delivering an excel spreadsheet to someone else. Some points you mention are seemingly so simple that we might overlook them - like selecting cell#A1, but they make a difference to the impression the spreadsheet creates at the recipient's end.

   Reply
3. Tom says:

   November 3, 2009 at 10:22 am

   Dear Chandoo,
   Great tricks.

   One trick I use (more and more) is to hide the sheet tabs and to hide the formulabar via the 'tools' 'options' and the 'view'-tab.

   Another trick is to limiting the scrolling area to hide all columms (or rows) until the end of the sheet. Select the column, press CTRL+SHIFT+RIGHT, right-click on the column and hide (also possible via VBA).

   I was wondering though if 'boss-proof' is related to 'excel-stupid-proof'?
   Cheerio
   Tom

   Reply
   • Arindam says:

     April 19, 2014 at 1:31 pm

     Just wondering if the hiding formula bar really works when a recipient opens it whose "view-show-Formula Bar" is still checked...

     Reply
     • T says:

       April 10, 2020 at 12:21 am

       It's saved to the sheet I believe.

       Reply
4. Martin says:

   November 3, 2009 at 2:58 pm

   Absolutely agree with this post !!!

   on the past months, after reading this blog, PTS's and Debra's Contextures, one of the things I've beggining to do as a best practice is to create all my spreadsheets with 3 tabs: data, summary and control, and this last one generally xlveryhidden, and sometimes the data one hidden as well.

   And this restrictions are also being applied as best practice, and with a lot of benefits as you well mentioned. Furthermore, if combined with dynamic named ranges, formulae is more readable to users, and the WOW effect is often achieved when the question "How did you do that?" arises.....

   Keep on the good posts !!!

   Rgds,

   Martin

   Reply
   • Ruthie says:

     April 3, 2014 at 5:52 pm

     Would you mind sharing an example of this technique?

     Reply
5. Nilesh says:

   November 3, 2009 at 3:11 pm

   Is there a way to keep the data in a seperate file rather than the same excel. This way you could keep presentation and data separate. But not sure how you would link up the two excel files

   Reply
   • Pieter says:

     June 4, 2013 at 10:22 am

     Yes, there is a way but it is not prefered.
     I used this a coulple of times, (You need to code).

     mail me if you need assistance with some sort

     Reply
   • T says:

     April 10, 2020 at 12:23 am

     It entirely is possible. The problem comes though, when you share the spreadsheet.

     If the recipient doesn't have both files, or access to both, things break when the values try to refresh.

     Reply
6. bazlina says:

   November 3, 2009 at 5:09 pm

   ey, why is the boss a she??

   Reply
   • applehead says:

     March 26, 2021 at 6:22 pm

     haha - welcome to the future. About time.

     Reply
7. Karthik says:

   November 3, 2009 at 5:28 pm

   Chandoo, one more trick that we could use with the help of VBA, RT click on the View code of the particular sheet, in the properties table set the Visible status to 2-xlveryhidden, this ensures the sheet name does not show up even when the BOSS tries to unhide the sheet from the sheet >> unhide option. Dont forget to password protect the VBA (available under tools >> VBAProject properties.

   Reply
8. Eric Lind says:

   November 3, 2009 at 5:36 pm

   Very good tips, although I have to say Chandoo, that your cats probably need to be spayed or neutered if they behave like that. =)

   Reply
9. Nimesh Thakkar says:

   November 3, 2009 at 6:27 pm

   Good to see all these tips on a single "sheet", and giving the name *boss proof*, and Dilbert was a great welcome 😀

   Reply
10. Peter H says:

    November 3, 2009 at 8:51 pm

    The best way to "Boss Proof" (and "Self Proof"!!) a spreadsheet is to keep back ups. I use a macro that saves the last 3 significant versions of the spreadsheet all with a date stamp included in the file name.

    Reply
11. Sébastien Labonne says:

    November 3, 2009 at 9:07 pm

    To quickly select cell A1 on all sheet, use CTRL-Page UP or CTRL-Page down to navigate between sheets and CTRL-Home to select cell A1 (if you have frozen pane, it will select the top left cell of the section below).

    Reply
12. Jorge Camoes says:

    November 3, 2009 at 10:37 pm

    Great list. And I follow every single item... I also use a consistent background color for input cells in every report/dashboard. And I use a little VBA to identify the user and change the report accordingly (selecting the right market, for example).

    Reply
13. Tim Buckingham says:

    November 3, 2009 at 10:49 pm

    Chandoo, Nice post. I like to use the hidden Paste Picture Link option. Keep the original report you want displayed on a hidden sheet and only show the boss the report picture. Also great to watch the confusion when boss trying to select cells is worth the effort!

    Reply
14. m-b says:

    November 4, 2009 at 10:17 am

    I usually save as PDF if there's no interactivity in the report. That way nothing can go wrong 🙂

    Reply
    • Janet says:

      April 3, 2014 at 9:09 pm

      PDFs work a dream for me too and saves the boss's EA from telling me all the time that she can't print my work!!

      Reply
15. Chandoo says:

    November 4, 2009 at 12:26 pm

    @All.. thanks a ton for sharing your ideas. I am thinking of writing a part 2 of this post explaining some of your ideas in detail.

    @Bazlina ... I will make sure the boss is a HE in the next post 🙂

    Reply
16. Hui... says:

    November 5, 2009 at 12:33 am

    "10 Tips to Make Better and Boss-proof Excel Spreadsheets"...
    Unless of course your Boss reads PHD !

    Reply
17. Debra McLaren says:

    November 5, 2009 at 7:21 am

    Great article with one glaring error.

    If (like me) the majority of your spreadsheet errors are *caused* by cats, adding more cats is just going to increase the problem.

    Reply
18. Chandoo says:

    November 5, 2009 at 8:52 am

    @Hui you always have a boss, even if you are boss. If you dont have a boss, then may be a cat or even a dog.

    @Debra: hmm... Are you sure the cats are not after the mouse? Go learn some keyboard shortcuts.. now 😛

    Reply
19. Paul Grenier says:

    November 6, 2009 at 5:05 am

    Great Web Site. I've done almost all the above in trying to build my application and it's taken me hours and hours reading my "dummies " book. Thank you for all this information.
    Is there a formula I can use that will automatically return to "A1" cell should an associate use the 10 page spreadsheet I have?
    Is there a way to set an expiration date on my workbook so that beynd that date no one will get beyond the cover page?

    Reply
    • Russell Cooney says:

      August 10, 2016 at 5:24 pm

      Paul, in all my "user facing" workbooks (those that I distribute) I create a named range called "Home" on the worksheet(s) that are most likely to be used. Then I write a little VBA that selects the Home range whenever that worksheet is activated or on other triggers depending on the context of the sheet. This is more appropriate for the dashboard tabs or summary tabs my job requires.

      But I usually set this functionality up early on in the design process so I can take advantage of it as well. I will sometimes assign a keystroke to the GoHome macro.

      Reply
20. JimmyG says:

    November 8, 2009 at 5:03 pm

    I'm in the marketing department (aka the picture department) and have to say that the macros/Excel sheets from our controlling department are the worst! They come to me to sort out the mess!!

    Reply
21. Chandoo says:

    November 9, 2009 at 9:02 am

    @Peter: You can try creating a table of contents and then place it on each and every sheet so that user can jump to anywhere from anywhere. Here is a tutorial to help you get started.

    Also, You can prevent users from accessing the workbook after a certain date using macros. But users can certainly by pass it by disallowing macros on that workbook.

    @Jimmy: Wow... (just kidding) Welcome 🙂

    Reply
22. Ryan says:

    November 17, 2009 at 4:21 pm

    I was recently given a spreadsheet to improve upon.
    One of the "boss-proof" actions that the previous author had used was to use data validation instead of protecting the sheet to ward off people changing formulas.
    After entering a formula or value into a cell, use data validation to only allow, in this spreadsheet, whole numbers between 9999999 to 99999999.
    It's a bit of a pain to actually correct stuff instead of just unprotecting a sheet, but for those that know how to unprotect a sheet, it's a definite way to keep them from fooling with formulas.

    Reply
23. Raja Srinivas says:

    December 6, 2009 at 6:10 pm

    Puchu,
    We would love to see "Print" in your links section.
    It helps us taking prints as neat as your posts 🙂

    Reply
24. Paul Grenier says:

    December 31, 2009 at 5:12 am

    Chandoo,
    I've emailed you a couple of times looking for avenues I need to try to put my workbook on the Internet.
    I notice you use PremiumThemes for your Web Site...You must feel good about their service. Do you think PremiumThemes might be an option for me?
    Paul

    Reply
25. Anurag G says:

    January 21, 2010 at 3:55 pm

    Instead of :
    Now Right click and select “Hide” option.

    Shortcut can be used : Ctrl+0 (to hide)..

    Reply
26. danial says:

    March 8, 2010 at 4:41 pm

    sir i wanted to know,how to hide cells or tab without hiding rows and columns? PLZ TELL ME

    Reply
27. JunDR says:

    March 15, 2010 at 10:28 am

    Hi Chandoo!

    Great tips! Im researching on an excel project now that you can create to "lighten" the size without sacrificing the data inside..
    We usually encounter problems with the data, excel file is shared, in a network folder.. and there are 11 people that enters their own productivity in each tab.. however, there comes a time (uncertain) where some of the data they enter either gets deleted or changes value.. could this be a file size problem? are there other ways to create this file that will decrease data inconsistencies?

    thanks!

    Reply
28. Exclude Hidden Rows from Totals [How to?] | Chandoo.org - Learn Microsoft Excel Online says:

    May 11, 2010 at 8:31 am

    [...] Hide un-necessary rows to create clean looking workbooks (and 9 more tips) [...]

    Reply
29. 12 Rules for Making Better Spreadsheets | Chandoo.org - Learn Microsoft Excel Online says:

    August 5, 2010 at 9:19 am

    [...] Presentation format: all spreadsheets, should be designed so that it is easy to follow the process flow and result. Almost every spreadsheet should be presentable and understandable to senior management without additional formatting or explanation. (tips: how to design boss-proof excel sheets) [...]

    Reply
30. Excel Links – Live from Bangkok Edition | Chandoo.org - Learn Microsoft Excel Online says:

    January 30, 2012 at 8:57 am

    [...] on Excel formatting here: How to make better excel sheets, Formatting [...]

    Reply
31. Excel Links – Live from Bangkok Edition | Microsoft Excel Training Courses says:

    January 30, 2012 at 10:15 am

    [...] on Excel formatting here: How to make better excel sheets, Formatting [...]

    Reply
32. How would you customize Excel after installing? [poll] | Chandoo.org - Learn Microsoft Excel Online says:

    February 10, 2012 at 8:35 am

    [...] 10 Tips to make better & boss-proof spreadsheets in Excel [...]

    Reply
33. Nicholas says:

    April 4, 2012 at 7:35 am

    You will find another quick and easy technique here:

    http://www.onsitetrainingcourses.com.au/main/page_blog_hiding_most_excel_rows_and_columns.html

    Reply
34. Show only few rows & columns in Excel [Quick tip] | Chandoo.org - Learn Microsoft Excel Online says:

    July 24, 2012 at 9:48 am

    [...] tips: Learn how to make better Excel sheets Spread some love,It makes you awesome! [...]

    Reply
35. Janet says:

    July 25, 2012 at 5:50 am

    Save what you want the boss to see as a PDF.  Absolutely foolproof and no cats hurt in the process.

    Reply
36. malen says:

    October 7, 2012 at 2:49 am

    I really enjoyed allot of the tips on here, especially the one on comments on cells. That will come in handy on allot of our projects. I would also like to share on on my little tricks. I am constantly working on several different reports with several different systems and in doing so I am constantly running in problems and my way out of them is simply calling <a href"http://www.reportingguru.com/"> Reporting Guru </a> and telling exactly what I'm going through and they can tell me exactly how to get out.

    Reply
37. The_Doctor says:

    December 11, 2012 at 6:28 pm

    One of the things I've found to boss proof my worksheets are a few simple VBA scripts to automatically protect the workbook/worksheets, and direct them to the "Quick Look" dashboard page, I hide all of the raw data sheets before saving.  The script looks like this:
    Private Sub Workbook_Open()

        Sheets("Summary").Protect Password:="password"
        Sheets("Labor Cost by Site").Protect Password:="password", AllowUsingPivotTables: =true
        Sheets("Labor Cost by month").Protect Password:="password"
        Sheets("Quick Look").Protect Password:="password"
        Sheets("Quick look").Activate
        ActiveWorkbook.Protect Password:="password", Structure:=True, Windows:=False
    End Sub

    I also have a pivot that contains labor cost data which cannot be refreshed while the worksheet is locked.

    Private Sub Worksheet_Activate()
        Sheets("labor cost by site").Unprotect Password = "password"
            Set pvttable = Worksheets("labor cost by site").Range("a1").PivotTable
                pvttable.RefreshTable
        Sheets("labor cost by site").Protect Password = "password", AllowUsingPivotTables:=True
    End Sub

    Reply
38. lol says:

    January 10, 2013 at 8:29 am

    OPPAN GANGAM STYLE!
     

    Reply
39. ben says:

    January 28, 2013 at 10:57 am

    good

    Reply
40. Rahul thial says:

    April 26, 2013 at 1:18 pm

    Your post are always with something creative , thanks for sharing this information , your post are worth reading and implementing 🙂 great job

    Reply
41. apt says:

    August 13, 2013 at 9:49 pm

    Hi,

    I will try to learn every point slowly !

    Shokran Chandoo.

    Reply
42. SpreadSheetNinja says:

    October 30, 2013 at 9:51 am

    Best boss Proofing of sheets is useing indirect(address 😛 this prevents most smartass bossess from doing any actual changes cus the formula will be long and hard to understand for any bystanders..

    Also putting the actual calculations on a different sheet can make a sheet bulletproof from bosses.. especialy if you put them in the Very hidden so when the boss learns how to unhide sheets he wont simply find them.

    One thing iv also learned is that most bosses is scared of macros that gives "virus" warnings before beeing run 😛 That include the default warning from Excel...

    Long formulas or work arounds is best way to go.

    Reply
43. Novice says:

    January 29, 2014 at 9:04 pm

    What's the best way to amalgamate two existing excel spreadsheets into one?

    Two teams use the same format spreadsheets with individual data split into calendar months and I want to make them one without manually entering the data.

    Reply
    • Girish R Kini says:

      March 24, 2015 at 5:25 am

      Alt + D + D + N

      Write a query and viola, Two sheets into one.

      Reply
44. Isaac says:

    March 6, 2014 at 4:21 pm

    Changing the properties of the file to read-only . (While the file is closed, right click on the file and check the read-only box.)

    This allows my boss(es) to access the file -- even change it -- without being able to save their changes. If a boss likes his 'new' version, he can save it with a different file name.

    But now -- how to prevent the boss from deleting the file altogether? Or deleting the whole network?

    Reply
    • pieter says:

      March 6, 2014 at 10:22 pm

      Hey man.
      Think you can go as easy as to make a shortcut that links to your read only document. Then the boss wont know of the root document. He can figure it out but lets face it. He is a boss and 70% if them wont know squat

      Reply
45. Matt says:

    September 5, 2014 at 7:25 pm

    Instead of "Hiding" rows & columns, I find "Grouping" works best as its very easy to quickly see if a worksheet has hidden rows/columns. Sometimes hiding a random row/column is not easily noticed and can create issues.

    Reply
46. samantha says:

    October 25, 2014 at 4:45 pm

    I have one xl sheet with different dates in many columns and one raw's. I want to send this data to another xl sheets for each date. if somebody can help me will be great.

    Reply
    • Tom says:

      October 27, 2014 at 8:37 am

      Dear Samantha,

      Check out the website of Ron de Bruin. He has a great set of macro's and free add-in that can help you with this issue.
      http://rondebruin.nl/win/s3/win006.htm
      Tom

      Reply
47. Mariateresa says:

    January 16, 2015 at 8:43 pm

    Hello, I have just found out that I made a mistake in my spreadsheet: I had a column of negative numbers, but one of them was positive (while it should have been negative). Is there a formula/system to avoid this?

    Thanks.

    Mariateresa

    Reply
    • rajan pradeep says:

      May 31, 2016 at 5:55 pm

      Yes, data validation. Values you denote would be between -1 and -999,999,999.

      Reply
48. Girish R Kini says:

    March 24, 2015 at 5:23 am

    Hi,

    Hiding any worksheet can be unhidden and messed around easily. I change the visibility in visual basic from -xlSheetVisible to -xlSheetVeryHidden. By this, even if you right click on sheets, you will be unable to find the hidden sheets.

    Cool? I think so...

    Reply
49. sandeep says:

    September 9, 2015 at 3:44 am

    Very informative, Thanks

    Reply
50. Cedric says:

    March 2, 2016 at 9:32 pm

    Is there a way to lock cells in an already protected worksheet.
    (Thus the entire worksheet is protected, then the entire office can open it as read only but only a few users have the password to edit the file)
    I would like an additional password or prompt box so these few users don't accidentally change formulas.

    Reply
51. find a new career quickly says:

    July 5, 2016 at 7:28 pm

    Itss such as you learn my thoughts! You appear too understand
    a lot abnout this, like you wrote thee e-book in it
    or something. I fel that you just could do with some percent to presseure the message house a little bit,
    but insatead off that, this iis wondeerful blog.
    An excellent read. I'll definitely be back.

    Reply
52. free movie says:

    September 6, 2016 at 2:08 pm

    It is in reality a nice and helpful piece of info.
    I am happy that you just shared this useful info with
    us. Please keep us up to date like this. Thank
    you for sharing.

    Reply
53. GraH says:

    October 4, 2016 at 10:24 am

    I laughed out loud reading the 2nd solution about moving to marketing department and making ppts.
    I've been using "technical" sheets for a long time already and depending on the audience it is hidden or not. I'm currently in my NO VBA mindset, so the very hidden option is no longer. Using sheets names like: TechnicalCodes; ExplicitVariables;SetUp; HeavyCalc seem to work to my experience as they send along a message "Don' t you mess-up here, you fool!". A "Read This" section or sheet however does not work!
    Reading stuff on this site has helped me develop a good habit of using colors and themes to assist the end user in being well-behaved. In my book the best advise here, because it is about the user experience and not only about protection your own work.
    For dashboards I get rid of tabs and scroll bars. Besides 2 exceptions, I need to come across a manager who can turn them on again without my help.
    Seems that I forgot about protecting cells, sheets and workbooks altogether. Damn!

    Reply
54. Mark H says:

    December 9, 2016 at 5:08 am

    Thanks for the informative article Chandoo, I've been struggling with Excel lately. It's a powerful tool, but hard to learn for me.

    Reply
55. Neeraj Singh says:

    June 15, 2017 at 6:09 am

    Thanks Chandoo for sharing these excel sheet tips it helps me a lot to understand excel more.

    Reply
56. Bryan says:

    June 26, 2018 at 3:59 am

    Nice roundup, Chandoo! Here's one more I thought would be relevant:

    For Excel 2013+, you can hide the ribbon, as shown in this animated gif: https://gridmaster.io/tips/hide-ribbon-excel-space

    This will simplify the interface, making it less likely for people to accidentally make changes. 🙂

    Reply
57. KUMAR says:

    May 7, 2020 at 11:49 am

    THANK YOU SIR

    Reply
58. constantine la says:

    December 2, 2022 at 4:27 am

    I'm better at Power BI thanks to you!

    Reply

Leave a Reply